A wide variety of video playback devices are available in the marketplace. Most people own, or are familiar with, a video cassette recorder (VCR). A video tape recorder (VTR) is another type of video playback device. More recently, video recorders that use computer magnetic hard disks rather than magnetic cassette tapes to store video programs have appeared in the market. For example, the ReplayTV™ recorder and the TiVO™ recorder digitally record television programs on hard disk drives using, for example, MPEG-2 compression. Additionally, some video playback devices may record on a readable/writable digital versatile disk (DVD) rather than a magnetic disk.
Often when a viewer is watching a video program that has been recorded on a video playback device, the viewer will give the video playback device a “fast forward” command to cause the video playback device to skip past the advertisements that have been recorded with the program. In those cases where a viewer is watching a direct (non-recorded) broadcast of a program with advertisements the viewer will often switch to another channel when an advertisement is being displayed.
This is undesirable for program broadcasters because the advertisements that are broadcast with the programs pay for the programs. Advertisers pay the program broadcasters to broadcast advertisements in order to deliver the advertisements to the viewing public. The program broadcasters therefore have an interest in seeing that the advertisements are viewed and not ignored.
There is therefore a need in the art for a video display system that is capable of preventing a viewer of a direct (non-recorded) broadcast from switching from a first channel to a second channel when an advertisement is displayed on the first channel. There is also a need in the art for a video display system that is capable of preventing a viewer of a recorded program from fast forwarding the recorded program in order to skip past advertisements that were recorded with the program.